Two Days in Yellowstone National Park

We just closed out two full days at Yellowstone National Park, and it was much more impressive than we imagined. As we set out on our round the world trip, we’re glad we could start at one of our nation’s greatest treasures. Preserving our national parks and forests – you got this one right, America. Here is one of the maps we used.

Source: http://www.swerdloff.us/Yellowstone/index.html

Now for specifics. There are many things to say about Yellowstone, but I will sum it up in three major points:

1. Yellowstone is all about geothermal features.

Yellowstone sits on top of an active super volcano, so we started our first day checking out the many variations of volcanic activity that are present. This was a good call, because the thermal features (as they are called) are so awesome they snapped me out of my elevation sickness. Thermal features range from geysers (like Old Faithful), to hot springs and mud pots (which look like boiling mud). Microorganisms live on the surfaces of these places, causing some to turn bright colors. We took the lower loop around the park – including the Lower Geyser Basin Paint Pots, the Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful, and the Hayden Valley Mud Volcano.

2. Yellowstone has many landscapes – and all of them are beautiful.

The second day we focused on the Canyon Village region – we did several phenomenal hikes around the canyon and accompanying waterfalls. We then drove the loop through the Roosevelt area to Mammoth Hot Springs. I will let the upcoming gallery do the talking on the beautiful and varied landscapes – but they were all created by a gigantic volcanic eruption half a million years ago.

3. Bison don’t care about your human “roads.”

Bison were the most common wildlife we saw – and we saw quite a few of them – sometimes nibbling grass by the road or rolling around in the dust to cool off. We even saw several calves – which have orange fur. We also saw elk, deer, a coyote, and what we believe was a moose. No bears this trip. Much to my relief and Will’s disappointment.

And now we are traveling west across Nevada. The landscape has gradually changed from forests, to mountain framed grasslands, to rolling desert hills. We plan to spend the night in Reno, en route to San Rafael, CA. Look for more Yellowstone pictures to come…